Puzzle games built for a crowded commute

A good commute puzzle game has a specific shape: you can play it with one hand, pause it the instant your stop arrives, and it never asks for data. A lot of popular puzzlers fail that last part.

Hollow Lantern surprised me here. It's technically an adventure, but the puzzle-solving carried my morning train rides for a week. Observation-based challenges are perfect for broken-up sessions because you can leave and come back without losing your train of thought.

I also keep a rotation of quick matchers for when I just want to zone out. The trick is finding ones that don't bombard you with pop-ups the moment you reconnect.

If a puzzle game saves your state locally and resumes exactly where you left off, keep it. If it dumps your board on a reconnect, delete it. Life's too short.